By My Penny Of Observation
by Jeanne Marie
Summary: Fifth in the Shakespeare series, after "Nor A Lender Be". Arthur makes the mistake of forgetting that recovery has a myriad number of stages, and is easily ten times as long as anyone wants it to be. Meanwhile, Eames kicks ass on multiple levels.


Thank you so much to **faor** for the beta.

o0o

Manny and Abram Guerrero are more than brothers, more, even, than twins. From the descriptions of Sanz and his group, they are a cannier, more corrupt Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Eames especially seemed skeptical of the stories, until he returned from a day of recon to report that yes, they actually do speak in stereo on occasion. Not often, but it's enough to prove that they're linked in a way that Arthur hasn't had to account for in the past. No matter which one they take under, the projection of the other will be right there the whole time. Knowing how unpredictable and intractable projections can be, he decides to go with the marginally less risky option of extracting both twins at the same time.

The "marginally" can't be left off. Real people have been known to fuck up his plans in an equally spectacular fashion. But they can be much easier to manipulate. Can.

The first level serves its purpose, but it's on the second level that Eames kind of outdoes himself.

No, not kind of. Without question.

"_Si, Mama,_" the brothers say, their heads hanging low, agreeing to everything, anything, if she'll just keep talking, keep being there. It doesn't matter that they're approaching middle age and haven't goofed off in church since their mother died three decades ago. It doesn't matter that the five foot nothing woman they're cowering from is actually a thirty-something white Englishman who might not even believe in a higher power. To them, this is reality.

Arthur is flitting about the church, dressed in the cassock of a priest, keeping a weather eye on the projections and the marks both. Mama Eames takes pity on the boys, ends the scolding session in favor of lighting candles together. Just before he takes them home for homemade tortillas with pan-fried beans and sour cream (The technique of which was hard-won. Eames's efforts at learning to sear tortillas directly on the stove infused the place with an acrid smell that still lingered when they packed up this morning.), Eames thanks Arthur for the mass and slips into his hand a piece of paper onto which he scrawled a list, the names of the dead Manny and Abram whispered as they lit their candles. A pair of teenage girls smile at Arthur as he leaves through the back door. He has to take the list out to Cobb in the graveyard.

The regretting is in full force roughly two hours later. "Have I told you lately what a brilliant idea it was to do a cemetery?" Arthur asks conversationally. "Because it was."

"Like Mexican gangsters are going to leave anything valuable in a bank." Cobb drops into the hole, having done his patrol around the village.

Arthur gives an aborted shrug. His shoulder refuses to loosen up no matter how many times he tells it that his physical self has actually been lying still this entire time. "Could have been a corrupt bank," he muses.

"Hard work never killed anyone, Arthur," Dom says, taking the shovel. There isn't so much as a hint of a smile beneath the stubborn dusting of earth on his skin, but something in Cobb's general demeanor is just very telling.

"You're enjoying yourself," Arthur announces. "Dominic Cobb, digging graves and having the time of his life. I think you missed your calling."

Cobb doesn't say anything, but when Arthur turns to climb out of the hole, he feels a clod of dirt bounce between his shoulder blades and break apart.

o0o

The names of the men making up the Guerreros' new connection across the border in Nogales, Arizona are tucked safely in Cobb's mind, along with their shipping schedule for the next three months. The timer runs out on the second level and on the first, the buildings are crumbling to pieces around them. Maitland Kutz, the chemist, has gone.

Each of them separately dreams up a gun.

The first coherent thought Arthur registers when he opens his eyes in the waking world is that the word "sorry" has been scrawled on the back of his hand.

Eames makes short work of packing up the PASIV while Cobb binds the still-sedated twins. "We can't have much t-"

That's when the door explodes.

The two men who come through are dispatched so quickly it's almost as though they were never there at all. But they aren't alone. They can't possibly be alone.

God knows what those men could have done to Arthur's rental car, so they take off on foot.

After three blocks, the next street is a six lane expressway with lights that appear to be offering suggestions rather than edicts. Arthur just barely makes it across before the traffic starts coming hard and fast. Five seconds later and they would have been decorating the tar. Next to him Cobb huffs a quick, relieved sigh. This isn't close to being over, but Arthur allows himself to briefly entertain the idea that they'll all still be alive tomorrow.

The feeling lasts until he turns around and Eames meets his gaze from the other side of the street.

"No." Arthur shakes his head. "No. _Shit_."

Eames coughs. His shoulders won't stop shaking and his face is flushed. He hasn't looked this bad in a long time. A miracle would have to occur for him to make it across by himself, and it would take too long for them to go back and get him.

Cobb mutters a curse.

Knowing Eames, he's probably laughing at them. Arthur can't tell because the man is almost doubled over and his face is hidden. The cars won't stop coming.

Does this light even change?

Straightening up some, Eames gives a salute.

'Get yourself caught and I'll be the one you have to worry about,' Arthur wants to tell him. Also: 'Watch your damn back.' All he can do is hope the message comes through in his glare.

Eames says something that looks like 'Fucking go already.' After making a plus sign and an upside-down V with his hands, he stumbles into a cantina.

Arthur spends a split second watching Eames disappear. Then he and Cobb are running.

o0o

They've put about half a mile behind them when Cobb speaks.

"So how do we get to this church Eames is headed for?"

Plus sign. Arthur clenches his jaw, feeling like five kinds of moron.

But at least he knows which one Eames picked. Weeks after making the discovery, it still seems a bit odd that there's a Christ Church in Mexico City. Incongruous.

o0o

Based purely on physical appearance, Dom has never thought of Eames as particularly intimidating, possibly because of the other man's height. It's harder to feel threatened by someone who has to look up to establish eye contact. Tonight, though, his grin, accompanied as it is by a bloodless complexion and slightly glassy eyes, is a macabre thing that would cause children to run and hide behind their parents. "Well, hello," he says, breathing hard.

As one Dom and Arthur step forward and drag him to a pew.

"Have you gained any new holes?" Arthur asks, sounding clinical.

Eames lets his eyes slide shut.

"_Holes_, Eames. Goddammit."

For an odd moment, Dom thinks Arthur is going to slap Eames awake, but the sharpness in his tone does the trick.

"Well, there's this." Eames uses a bruised and abraded hand to gesture at a bloody rent in the fabric covering his left bicep. "Not a hole, though. A scrape, really. ...A scratch."

"A scratch," Arthur repeats. His lips have gone white. "And that's all."

It takes Dom a moment to fully process what's going on. It isn't often that he sees Arthur genuinely livid. He wonders if Eames is in any condition to notice.

"Mm-hm." Sliding down in the pew, Eames leans his head back and sighs. "Gave far, far worse than I received, believe me. Refilling the vacancies I just created in their organization should keep Manito and his brother busy for... well, a few minutes at least."

Apparently not. Arthur looks at Eames like he's ten seconds from knocking him out, which would not take much effort on his part at all.

Dom flashes back. How they used to circle around each other like alpha wolves, the way their sniping would strain the boundaries of professionalism. Once an extractor asked him why he put up with their contentious rivalry. Dom had shrugged, saying, "I don't care if they hate each other. They get the job done." But God, if they hadn't been a pain in his ass sometimes.

Nothing about this is funny. In Arthur's expression he sees a ransacked hotel suite, diaphanous curtains, a shoe falling until he can't follow it anymore, and he knows that this is as far from humorous as possible.

And yet. Well.

Dom clears his throat. "Come on," he says. "Let's get you cleaned up. The night bus to Oaxaca leaves in thirty minutes and it takes almost twenty to get to the station."

Eames lifts his head slightly. "Oh, have you got a car?"

"We have got a car," Dom confirms.

"Nicely done, Yanks." Eames's lips stretch into a sleepy smile. "I was so hoping I could count on you."

Dom nearly snorts, but it might give Arthur's rage a convenient target and he'd prefer not to get hit in the face tonight.

o0o

Eames is sacked out on a row of seats in George Bush Airport in Houston, exhaustion paralyzing him to the point where he hasn't so much as twitched in almost two hours. Because he also looks like he escaped from some sort of prison camp, the flight attendants stationed at their gate have been giving him concerned looks. A few stop by to ask if they need assistance.

Arthur waves them all away as Dom downs two Tylenol to combat the headache he tends to get from shit going wrong. "He's done this before," he tells Dom. "Things get to be too much, his body shuts down. Hibernates like a bear."

Dom chases the pills with a few sips of room temperature coffee. "Do you plan on forgiving him any time soon?" he asks, since they're on the subject.

With just his eyes, Arthur says that he thinks Dom has lost his mind. "He didn't do anything wrong."

"I know that," he says, opening the in-flight magazine. He's always wondered where the best places to eat brunch in Napa were.

"Dom." Arthur lets out a measured breath.

When nothing else seems forthcoming, Dom searches his pockets for the pre-paid cell he got from a kiosk three gates down. "Would you tell Philippa I'll be home soon? She doesn't, um."

"Trust your word?" Arthur supplies.

Dom successfully holds back a good ninety-five percent of a wince. "She's learning. It's just..."

"It's taking a while."

"Kids have such long memories," he says ruefully, scratching at the stubble on his jaw. "Maybe by the time she graduates high school I'll be her hero again." Then there's James, who's adjusted so well it's almost like nothing ever happened. That first night, though, after the Fischer job, Miles had announced it was time for bed (because Dom no longer knew) and James had gone from simple protests to screaming himself sick so fast it had made Dom's head spin. Dom had held him close, heard the hiccupping breaths in his ear, felt the little heart pounding frantically through his chest. The kid had been terrified that he'd go to sleep and Dom wouldn't be there when he woke up. _I did this_, he remembers thinking. _Jesus, I did this_. And he'd let both kids sleep in the bed with him. For a week.

Arthur stares out at the queuing planes. "She'll probably look like her."

"I know." He's not lying. It becomes more obvious with every passing day, as her hair transitions from blonde to dirty blonde to brunette and the rounded chubbiness of her features gradually melts away to something sharper, more patrician. "I'm okay with it." He would sooner smash every PASIV ever made than let her anywhere near one, however. And he's having that top melted down as soon as this job is over.

He's strongly considering the idea, anyway.

Eames stirs, throwing off the blanket he stole from the first plane and rubbing absently at his chest. He peers at them as though he knows who they are but would be hard-pressed to say exactly how. "Morning."

Dom opens his mouth to tell Eames the actual time, which is seven in the evening, then changes his mind.

"Water," Arthur says. He points to a bottle of Aquafina next to Eames's hip.

With a grunt-like noise, Eames turns to paw at the bottle. Somehow his uncoordinated movements still yield results. After draining half the contents, he tries to place it on the floor, but seems to forget his intended goal early on. As a result he just sits there with the bottle in hand, staring at the floor.

Arthur silently leans forward and takes the water from Eames before it can spill everywhere. For a short while, the only sounds Dom hears are the tinny announcements from flight staff and the rush of surrounding travelers.

"God," Arthur says, deadpan. "You really are a useless son of a bitch, Eames."

Eames responds with a loud yawn and a clumsy string of sounds that could be words' more primitive ancestor. In less than a minute he's horizontal and unmoving again.

One corner of Arthur's mouth turns up. "I'm surprised he even woke up that much on his own. First two days in Hong Kong, I had to dump water on his head just to get him to eat and use the bathroom."

"Feel better?"

A pained expression passes over his face. "I want to _kill_ something," he admits quietly.

"I didn't realize you liked men," Dom says. This is new territory for them. Arthur fell for Mal the first time they met and seemingly never got back up again. He and Dom have had incentive to avoid the topic of Arthur's love-life. If they didn't talk about it, it couldn't come between them. In theory.

"I like him," Arthur says, simply, as though that explains everything.

But then, Dom wasn't asking for an explanation.

"We were going to call your kids," Arthur reminds him.

"Yeah. I suppose we were. So how long do you think this will take?" Despite his reputation for gentility, Pedro Sanz is a kingpin who has done little to earn Dom's trust. This meeting could turn into a bloodbath, or it could be civil and straightforward and end with Dom leaving with enough money to keep the family counselor on retainer for the next several years.

"Our friend claims the snafu had nothing to do with his people," Arthur says, taking the phone. "We should still be prepared for anything. Maybe..." Arthur's gaze lands on the boarding pass sticking out of Dom's jacket pocket.

Dom wonders how anyone could think that Arthur is hard to read. "We'll need guns," he says in a low voice. "Do you have any contacts in the area? Mine have gone dry."

Arthur looks at him before nodding to himself, and Dom squashes a burst of undirected anger. Arthur shouldn't be surprised that Dom won't leave him and his barely functioning boyfriend (or whatever he is) to deal with this on their own. "Eames does," Arthur says.

Dom glances at the row of seats where Eames lies. _Snoring_ would be too much to ask of the man.

"Twenty four hours from now, he should be okay." Arthur takes a sip from the water bottle and sighs. "Better," he amends quietly.

"That's good." Dom feels like he has to continue the conversation. Arthur doesn't have anyone else.

After a short, thoughtful silence, Arthur rubs his eyes. "He thought he was past it. He wasn't just trying to snow me; I can tell the difference. But I should have-"

The lilt of a native Texan comes on the PA, announcing that the flight to New Orleans is ready to board families with small children and passengers with special needs.

"Oh. Shit." Arthur clutches Dom's phone. "Look. See what you can do about Eames. Get him started. I'll make the call and be over there in a sec."

"Sure," Dom says, wishing he could get Eames on the plane before Arthur gets off the phone. It would be nice to be able to do this one thing for him.


End file.
